The Beat Goes On

I had visited the Electronic District, and wanted to share some pictures with you. Unfortunately, my file has somehow disappeared. I suppose this district might be exciting for some, but I found it bewildering especially since I was looking for something specific and it was like trying to find a thimble in a junk drawer! I will return to take more pictures and hopefully find a battery pack for my son-in-law.

I have also been to Insadong but my camera ran out of batteries. We have been unable to find lithium batteries and the alkaline charger and batteries that I bought do not hold the charge. What we have done is buy a large supply of alkaline batteries until we can find lithium batteries. This is proving to be an unexpected challenge. Oh well, the show goes on. Insadong is a boutique-like shopping district with many galleries and shops. Al and I will be returning and take pictures.

Al has worked almost non-stop the last few weeks. This will continue until he has completed the first run through of his three month program. After that I hope things will slow down a bit for him. The other bit of irony is the rainy weather he has had on his days off.
The positive spin to this is that Al has developed the traveling bug! We have contacted a travel agent that speaks English to look at a trip for December.

Al's students took him out for dinner Saturday night after class. I was in Seoul that day and didn't make it back in time to join them. The dinner was a shabu. This is a meal that consists of a communal broth bowl over a gas element. The group is provided with platters of paper-thin shaved beef, vegetables, noodles to which they add to the broth to cook. At the end they get bowls of fried rice to eat the last of the broth with. It is one of the most popular dinners here. I am looking forward to trying this out.

I attended my first Korean class on Wednesday at the Korean Federation Cultural Centre in Seoul. I will be learning how to read and write Hangeul over the next four weeks. After writing a test, I will be able to progress to the beginners level. This course is approximately a year long if I pass each section and do not need to repeat. People in the advanced classes are expected to be fluent. They are very strict about missing classes. If you miss two you are out. I will therefore not be able to attend any month that I will be away traveling. I will just pick up again where I left off the following month.

There are around eight people in my class. They come from Canada, United States, France Chili, Taiwan and Viet Nam. We have three instructors whose English is only slightly better than my Korean. I very much enjoyed my first class and am thrilled that I can read some signs although I have no idea what they are saying. This will be interesting.

Although there are more periods of fog and rain, the weather is quite lovely. Perhaps I should clarify this is a point of view from a Winnipeger. There are people already wearing down ski jackets and wool hats. I still wear a sweater or a light jacket.

Until next time, CHEERS!